This topic was begun to help people understand how our costs break down, as far as what we pay to the hosts of SeptemberClues.info and CluesForum.info for various services. This topic will be updated to give you a break down of current costs, so the public can measure the value of our services against what it takes to upkeep.

This is not intended as a "guilt trip" but just an act of transparency.

Explanation : There are cheaper plans with other services. But ACORN is a good company. They have given us the non-profit deal because they understand we are doing this for public good, they have dealt with various annoyances for us and they consistently maintain generally high service. Since SeptemberClues.info is largely static, and relatively small, the main challenge of its host is to maintain consistent up-time and give us adequate bandwidth. We are presently projected to overshoot our bandwidth by over 100% within a week, and we may be forced to upgrade for the fourth time soon.

Content : We primarily keep the animated GIFs and imagery analysis there, although there are also a couple hefty PDFs and videos. CluesForum.info occasionally leaches from SeptemberClues.info storage space for some posts' images. We also host terror.septemberclues.info here, which is cloned from the defunct site "fredogfrihed", and which lists a number of fake victims from various false flag terrorist "events" for public scrutiny. Our most expensive costs are the GIFs (46% of our content taking 89% of our bandwidth), FLVs (less than 1% of our content taking 8-9% of our bandwidth) and JPGs (about half of our content taking less than 2% of our bandwidth.) The GIFs have been very useful tools to explain and document media fakery.

Explanation : NearlyFreeSpeech is a unique bare-bones system, which calculates for its users an exact cost break down, as seen above. It automatically expands to fill need and it rewards regular micro-transactions over bulk funding. Its simplicity and stability are benefits. Storage is less important than the function of the database, which manages the forum. We run a database for a significant portion of the cost of keeping it going.

Content : The storage is not such an expensive issue, but it receives much higher traffic than SeptemberClues.info which adds up to hundreds of gigabytes per year (recently, an annual terabyte) in needed bandwidth. We have received more than 1,300,000 unique hits and are increasingly referenced by sites outside of our network, which occasionally seem to borrow our imagery and data rather than copying it. We also utilize some of this space for storing research related images and media.

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SEPTCLUES.COM

Explanation : A special arrangement that Simon got, specifically from someone who said they were interested in the research. I don't know much about this, and I assume (perhaps naively) that it will always be there despite the good deal. It's been very useful, and Simon says we only give $100 or so per year to maintain it. However, it might not be a long term solution.

Content : This is where Simon stores a copy of his large repository of the images, motion graphics and videos used in the 9/11 research. It is a public back up that seems to have good storage and bandwidth, but only because we haven't heard complaints from the donor when we add more. Feel free to browse SeptClues.com (but please copy images to your own hard drive and store them yourself, rather than hotlinking from that server).

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IN GENERALWe are always adding more data to CluesForum, and even though we have some free storage in various places around the web, it doesn't feel totally secure. At some point, we are also looking for a way to reupload the FOIA data I received from NARA so the public can see and hear the 3 gigabytes of useless, fudged data they produced as an excuse for having no proof of flight manifests for any of the four 9/11 planes. But I am getting off topic.

The point is our estimated budget for the year should be:CluesForum.info .......... more than $200 (and growing) per yearSeptemberClues.info ..... more than $300 (and growing) per yearSeptclues.com ...................about $100 (and growing) per yearTOTAL ..................... more than $600 (and growing) per year

Since Simon and I are constantly giving out of our own pocket, in addition to producing some amount of research per year, and providing all of our moderation efforts on a weekly (sometimes daily, sometimes hourly) basis, if the two of us give a little over $25 per month each, we are barely covering the true cost to our lives of running this forum.

I can safely say that I might be able to cover Simon's expenses entirely by myself (and he might even be able to do the same) when either of us is in a bind, but even if we had no other expenses in our lives — sleeping safely, eating well, etc. — I hope that you will understand why we occasionally ask for some help with the expenses. When we become world famous super stars (or, more realistically, win one of the totally rigged lottery Jackpots around the world) we'll certainly delete the "Donate" and "Tip" button from the bottom of the SeptemberClues.info index page. Thank you so very much for the donations we have received so far. [st]Without revealing who gave what, we will next post about how much we have received in donations, and show you that y'all have made a big difference in keeping us going. (And this will also show you that you don't need to always give thinking we are desperate.)[/st] I just added up all our donations received since we started. Your donations have just covered our hosting expenses! Thank you!

Sorry if I have in the past sounded at all "weird" about discussing this information. I am just rubbed the wrong way by any effort I sense is a "marketing" scheme, and I resent (and I am suspicious) of the number of sites that claim to be services (like Prison Planet) which are largely connected to stores, books and other hype.

We have worked very hard to maintain our distance from such scammy looking things, because we are concerned that any such practice we adopt could easily become a (rather good) excuse for people to avoid us and information that may benefit them. I also hope that you understand we happily give away this data, which we hope will improve the lives of millions the world over. You have no obligation whatsoever to ever donate to this site (and it would be embarrassing, I think, at least for me, if I didn't feel we were giving some public service to the less fortunate than ourselves) so please know that this is a public service we provide happily; in an ideal world, we could get hosted for free by someone reliable and technically proficient that we both trust. For now, we stumble through our ignorance and shoestring budget out of our own patience and passion and curiosity, and we are all too proud to be responsible for such a groundbreaking (and hopefully, world improving) information repository.

Anyway, now you know about that side of the forum. Thank you so much, everyone.

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Just had a chance to put a $20 coin into the CluesForum mechanism. We reached below a dollar today.

I am sure it's not that we've stopped receiving donations, but the site will go offline if we don't transfer funds to NFS, which rewards smaller regular donations rather than large chunks in advance, for whatever reason. Maybe maintenance reasons.

Anyhow, just FYI. Please continue to enjoy the site as usual. No action is expected on your part. Carry on. etc.

You folks may be interested to know that since we moved from BlueHost, NFS reports: 1832 Gigabytes of transferred data.

Here are how the numbers show up this year (2016) so far:

NFS_sept-2016.GIF

(Sorry about the graphic, but formatting this for ASCII art seems annoying. The important numbers are: $185 for the year, about $20 per month)

Bear in mind this does not cover the expenses of SeptClues.com or SeptemberClues.info. This is evidence that it is not terribly expensive to host the truth. Still, if any of you out there would like to please start another blog or WordPress or other basic site to post your thoughts about this research and spread the most important information (rather than letting the shills take over the interwebs with things that bury 'September Clues' or ignore some of the truly great posts here by numerous people around the world) it would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes it sucks to be so alone. And we never intended to "control the dialogue", but only create one small space on the entire Internet where these things could be discussed to our satisfaction. It's just too bad there is pretty much only us, Fakeologist.com (which is much more permissive with shills and morons) and ... that's pretty much it.

Would you — yes, you — like to please host your own version of this critical critique of the media? A forum, a blog, or even a static page would be helpful. It doesn't have to be a podcast or YouTube channel but if that's what you're into, maybe that would help too. A song, even, or artwork. If you want to start a basic forum and expand CluesForum topics into theories we don't cover here, and you'd like any moderation tips, I am sure you don't need them from me but I'd be happy to explain any questions you have about setting up a forum, as well (as far as I know it).

Please do consider "volunteering" for this, for the sake of humanity. I am sure Simon and I are both equally sick of doing this pretty much by ourselves. Of course, there are wonderful informative researchers out there on their own too, like OneBornFree, Kham, SimonJCP, etc. etc. and they'd (I'm sure) appreciate the moral support you'd give by becoming one yourself. And of course, make it as fun for yourself or as creative as possible. Or introduce the subject to groups we didn't even know existed!

We are not alone, and we don't need to act like we are.

There is always the possibility of simply printing and circulating The Vicsim Report (using your color printer at work provided it doesn't get you in trouble) or just sitting around doing nothing at all, of course! Watch some boob toob. That's fine. We obviously don't know what is best. About anything. But if you think this dialogue is worth spreading, please do something. We are in a really strong position and it's worth helping humanity wake up to the lies. Thanks.

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Thank you to everyone who pitched in to keep SeptemberClues.info afloat recently. Here are the latest stats as reported by the Awstats metrics program.

Bear in mind this is specifically for SeptemberClues.info — our static page site. For this much traffic with our host Acorn, it costs us about $25 per month to operate (not including the small annual cost of the domain name). However, they have been a very reliable and secure site. (There is only some small issue with the SSL certificate, which we may need to have them correct if possible.)

Our traffic has decreased some since 2016, which is a good thing for the pocketbook.

Though, of course, when it comes to awakening people, there should be no "economy". Well, here is the "reality" as our for-profit host sees the situation (minus the $20 I just put in, which would put our donation average closer to $7/8 per month).

CF_mid-2017.GIF

So we are apparently only depositing about 50% of what we need. I suspect this is because of Simon's struggles to survive on little money right now, and I hope that you will forgive him because he also has to work hard on his research and he certainly deserves more than the world has thrown back at him, for all he has done to try to help humanity wrap its mind around some majorly ignored problems.

This is also a gentle nudge to all admins, if they can spare a little more from that which was donated for the purpose of keeping the forum alive, and not personal living expenses, that would prevent "gray outs" of CluesForum.

To be honest, I care more about Simon's health than the health of the forum, but anyway here we are being poor and spreading truth. Fun, isn't it?

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It's time for one of those "real grit" messages and I apologize in advance for spoiling once more the fantasy that we can run this site indefinitely without real world problems.

I just haven't had time to give our forum the attention it deserves, lately. I would love to get us SSL (though it's not really all that important since we aren't moving anything in terms of data that must "remain secure" like credit card info) if not just for the "respect" that search engines have for https links. I would love to fix all the links that people did not make with longevity of the forum's information in mind. (You can help us by not using bad or unreliable image hosting that eventually breaks and ruins old posts!)

However, this update seems more important than those for the time being. It basically lays out why the cost of hosting CluesForum.info may become more expensive. I just ran across this announcement from earlier in the year (just a couple months back) that seems pretty important for our existence at Nearly Free Speech. For anyone curious about DDOS attacks and how it relates to the reduction of net "freedom", or just curious about Nearly Free Speech in general, I highly recommend reading this entire post:

I’ve started and stopped writing a bunch of posts over the past few weeks. Recent events have really crystallized some issues that we’ve been looking at for over a year. Those posts are largely ideological in nature, and they tend to ramble on at very great length.

This isn’t intended to be such a post.

This is a post to acknowledge that our service has a couple of serious issues that require more urgent attention.

The cost and threat of DDOS attacks is escalating so quickly that unless we act, they will drive us out of business. It’s time for us to move toward ICANN accreditation.

Protection isn’t optional. There’s no point in offering our service if the minute anyone calls our bluff we have to fold. We’ll never be able to provide every site protection against every attack. There are other — much more expensive — services like Cloudflare’s $200/month “Business” plan that can help sites worried about the last few % of attacks we can’t hope to mitigate. But we can do a lot better than this, and we must do better than this. Free speech, it turns out, is heinously expensive, and the cost is rising rapidly.

Hence, we’re changing our pricing to reflect that all sites, regardless of size or activity, must contribute toward the collective cost of protection from attacks. That wasn’t an easy decision, but we believe it’s the only workable option in the current online climate.

What this means to us as a site and as the admins, who are most responsible for the longevity of our particular archive of information (though you are all encouraged to please reproduce and spread the information faster than it can be suppressed, propagandized and/or mindwiped out of existence by popular brain-programming entertainment) is that the cost is likely to increase. I don't know exactly how this will be reflected in our particular budget, but in our perpetual interest in better transparency than most public services in the world, we will let you know the differences as we learn of them.

Thank you for reading and your understanding. This isn't a post to ask for donations. Just a heads up. Thanks.

We are presently re-considering specifically our hosting of SeptemberClues.info with Acorn and switching to a more affordable server space in Germany that is also host to septclues.com.

This could — if we don't rely on SeptemberClues.info for general storage, and just leave it as the neat and tidy site it is — serve as a very economical solution that drops our cost to maintain the site from upwards of $25 per month down to about $10 per month. Thank you so much for your patience, and if this goes smoothly eventually we may find an even better and/or more casual place.

fbenario » November 15th, 2018, 7:37 pm wrote:If the forum's costs and/or funding source have now changed the mods should disclose the changes, both for consistency with past practice and to protect us all from baseless accusations that we are preying on the gullible, similar to Alex Jones' Infowars site which is in part a cover for selling unnecessary multivitamins to fools.

Further, the forum and its predecessor have survived 9 years through smallish ongoing financial contributions by members. The mods should disclose if the forum no longer needs these contributions to survive.

The most valuable contributions on this Forum are those made in the written form by our Members. That said, there are financial expenses (apart from the “opportunity cost” of the labor involved, which was considerable, rest assured) associated with maintaining essentially anything of value.

As many of you likely recall, the Forum went down completely on October 8 of this year. This followed a weird time where we asked amongst ourselves just how serious the expiration of the SSL was, and what needed to be done about it.

In exchanges between the Admins (of which I had recently become), we were determined to get the forum “fixed” ASAP, with a mind towards preventing this kind of hiccup in the future.

Hoi and I worked tirelessly for hours on end on the 8th and 9th to try to get the Forum migrated and up and running. PianoRacer and I (primarily the former) worked numerous hours on the 10th to complete the process and get it back online. If memory serves me, it was back sometime that afternoon (on the 10th).

Throughout this process, there was a genuinely collaborative effort, and we were in constant communication with Simon about our progress.

There was some concern (at least initially between myself and Hoi) about whether the “backup” we had may be “corrupted,” and whether we would be able to get it restored. We decided to go with a new hosting service, and I was more than happy to cover those expenses (which accounted for three years of hosting up front).

The calculation was an easy one for me. I can’t even fathom the number of man-hours that has gone into making Cluesforum what it is today. The value of this body of work doesn’t have a fair dollar amount that could be assigned to it in my opinion. I am personally humbled to be a part of it.

Simon of course offered to reimburse me, but I declined as I considered it the least I could do to contribute (with time and money) to something I sincerely believe in, and wish to be maintained long into the future.

He has spent untold amounts of time and money (along with Hoi and Nonhocapito, and others I’m sure) working on Septemberclues, The Vicsim Report (authored of course by Hoi.Polloi), and now the TYCHOS. There are other expenses associated with Septemberclues and TYCHOS that are integral to this Forum in my estimation. But I will wait and let Simon speak to that.

So please forgive me if I wasn’t comfortable touting my relatively de minimis financial contribution in this instance.

I am committed to Cluesforum, regardless of whatever contributions may or may not be made by others. That is the same attitude that Simon has, and I respect that.

If one of us is unable (in whole or in part), then I’m sure we will work together to get it covered. If we need to reach out to our members, then we will do that as well.

Simon and I have been dealing with so many other things that we haven’t quite reached this particular item on the list. And it’s not an Admin “Board Feature,” so I will need to get with Simon and figure out what to do with it from here.

Fbenario wrote above:

The mods should disclose if the forum no longer needs these contributions to survive.

I will answer your question directly. No, donations are not needed for Cluesforum to survive.

I just wish to thank SCS (and SmokeytheBarrister and Pianoracer) once more for their precious assistance of late, what with their time and patience sorting out the recent tech issues / re-hosting / re-organizing of the forum - it is very much appreciated indeed. This, at a (rather difficult) time for me as both Hoi and Nonhocapito (the original "techies" who spent untold man hours in the past helping me out - and whom I consider "co-founders" with yours truly of Cluesforum) are pursuing other paths in their lives - something that I can fully understand and respect: after all, running Cluesforum is a mostly thankless, time-consuming task - even though I personallly find it to be a most intellectually-enhancing one.

More than a decade ago I released my September Clues documentary (a pretty huge, solitary undertaking that took me the best part of two years to complete and refine) which, of course, I released on the internet for the world to watch free of charge. At the time, I was slightly better off financially than I am today, so it never crossed my mind to "monetize it" in any way (as it is, I remember some close friends of mine actually "scolding me" for not doing so!...). SC is now available in 12 languages, mostly thanks to various volunteer-translators around the world who generously donated their time and skills "for the cause". One exception, if my memory serves me well, was when Hoi paid a small fee to a Korean acquaintance who translated SC to Korean. This was well worth it, one may say, since the Korean version of SC has by now topped the 1-million-viewer mark on YT (not that this has made me a penny richer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJPBqbnJsfI

Today, I have four websites (and related domains) to my name which I intend to keep running for the remainder of my lifetime: Cluesforum.info, Septemberclues.info, Septclues.com (which stores all my imagery research as well as the Clues Chronicle audio material) and now Tychos.info. As I hope everyone can imagine, incalculable amounts of man hours and sheer, selfless dedication have gone into making and running these voluminous informative research sites (and continue to do so).

The running costs for those sites and domains have, more often than not over the years, pretty much been covered by the kind donations of a (restrict) number of supporters whom I hereby salute and thank - although this is no longer the case (of late). As mentioned above, I certainly have not become a wealthier man in later years, au contraire. I will hasten to add that this is not to be interpreted as some "lament" of mine, as I find it tremendously enrichening - on many levels other than financial - to do what I do. The many visitors to my house whom I've been inviting over the years from around the world (among them several Cluesforum members) can testify that I live a quite simple life - and that the main "luxury" that I value and pursue is meeting interesting people and true friendship.

fbenario » November 15th, 2018, 7:37 pm wrote:If the forum's costs and/or funding source have now changed the mods should disclose the changes, both for consistency with past practice and to protect us all from baseless accusations that we are preying on the gullible, similar to Alex Jones' Infowars site which is in part a cover for selling unnecessary multivitamins to fools.

Well, dear Fbenario - nothing much has changed around here, and no - I will never start selling unnecessary multivitamins, I promise.

Fbenario wrote:Further, the forum and its predecessor have survived 9 years through smallish ongoing financial contributions by members. The mods should disclose if the forum no longer needs these contributions to survive.

As SCS rightly stated above, Cluesforum will always survive - no matter what (and I thank him for anticipating the initial re-hosting fees for Cluesforum - although I will insist to reimburse him). As for "are contributions still needed?" Well, that's for each and everyone to judge for themselves. Should my meager savings dry out, I'd probably say "yes". Whereas if I should (miraculously) pocket a Noob-el Prize for my TYCHOS model, I'd surely say "no"!